City of Basketball Love

Zak Wolf (@ZakWolf22)
—

Elimination games aren’t complicated. Two things can happen: your team either wins or goes home, it’s that simple. In these do-or-die scenarios with everything on the line, the only thing that’s needed is for your team to have more points than your opponent and you win the game. It doesn’t matter how ugly the game is, as long as when the final buzzer sounds, your team is ahead, you survive and advance. 

Penn Wood didn’t play the prettiest basketball on Friday night against Spring-Ford, but it got the job done. The Patriots defeated the Rams 40-38 in a double overtime thriller in the District 1 6A playbacks, with the game deciding who went to states and whose season would be ended. 

The game was tightly-contested all night, with neither team leading by more than six points at any point. Penn Wood was able to squeak out a victory on Spring-Ford’s home floor to clinch their second state playoff berth in three seasons after missing out last year.

“At the beginning of the season, the goal is always to make states,” senior Evan Boward said. “District’s is fun too, but the main goal is always to get to states.”

Boward was part of Penn Wood’s team when they last made states in 2020, along with a district championship game appearance. This time Boward is more of a contributor, leading all scorers with 15 points on Friday night.

A sophomore in 2020, Boward watched as the Patriots lost the district final to West Chester East, when they were in the 5A classification. That year, Penn Wood went on to lose to Archbishop Ryan in the first round of states also. 

The last time the Patriots made states in 6A was 2017, where they also lost in the first round to Williamsport. 

“We feel great right now,” Penn Wood head coach Matt Lindeman said. “I’ve been doing this for a while, and that’s what it takes to get to states. It’s never easy; that was a lot of maybe not the prettiest basketball game, but it was pressure.”

After a successful 2020, Penn Wood went 3-9 last season in a shortened year, one that proved to be tough for a lot of teams. Penn Wood needed a bounce-back year and they got one, going 12-6 during the regular season, clinching a spot in the districts and now states. 

It’s been a long journey that started all the way back in April when the team first started to get together for offseason workouts, but thanks to the leadership of seniors like Boward and Naeem Powell, the hard work is paying off. 

“It says a lot about a couple of our senior guys, they really bought in and were leaders from when we were finally able to get back,” Lindeman said. “Their leadership and working hard, with other guys seeing them do it, and how we work every day was really important, so I’m proud of those seniors.”

The senior leadership and experience was needed in such a close game, where every play was crucial, but someone with less experience stepped up. 

Sophomore point guard Anthony Murray made some key plays in the second half for Penn Wood. Murray made some mistakes in the first half when handling the ball, but he kept at it and was locked in on defense all night, never letting his energy drop. 

Murray pick-pocketed Spring-Ford point guard Caleb Little for an easy layup in the fourth quarter and hit a deep three in the first overtime, totaling six points on the night. In his first year of varsity basketball, as the season has gone on, Murray has gotten used to the fast-paced play. 

“I’m the heart of the team,” he said. “My job is to bring the energy all game.”

“He has his moments where he’s great and then down, he’s just learning,” Lindeman said. “I’m proud of him for fighting through those bad plays and just continuing to play defense. Those steals were game changers in the third and fourth quarter.”

Like Murray, Penn Wood has been through the highs and lows of high school basketball this season, including this week. After beating Pennsbury in the first round of districts 52-42, they were feeling great, but then a 17-point loss to Methacton brought them back down. 

The Patriots knew they had to bring it against Spring-Ford, a team who had beaten Methacton earlier in the year, or else their season would be done. 

“It’s not easy, you get these teenage kids that are emotional, tonight we were about just competing,” Lindeman said. “That’s been what the message has been for two nights, we don’t care if the ball goes in or out, just competing and we were proud to see them do that.

For Spring-Ford it’s the end of the road. It’ll be a tough pill to swallow for first-year head coach Joe Dempsey after his team blew a big second-half lead to Garnet Valley on Tuesday and with the result on Friday as well.  

Seniors Cole Turner, Gavin Schauder, Braden Huntington, and Jake Kressley all played their last game for the Rams. Kressley had 14 points, but Spring-Ford couldn’t get much going offensively other than him. Turner had eight, Schauder had seven and so did freshman Jacob Nguyen, but it wasn’t enough.

Penn Wood will play Haverford High in their first of two games to decide seeding for the state playoff. They’ll play either Downingtown West or West Chester East after, depending on the results in both games. 

The Patriots are going to have to do a better job of taking care of the ball if they want to advance in states and extend their season. 

“We have to keep playing hard, get better offensively,” Lindeman said. “In playoff basketball you can’t turn the ball over, which is the number one thing. If you want to win games in the playoffs, you can’t turn it over.”  

By Quarter
Penn Wood:    7   |  10  |   4   |   9   |   5   |   5   ||  40
Spring-Ford:    10  |  10  |   3   |   7   |   5   |   3   ||  38

Scoring
Penn Wood: Boward 15, Shillingford 7, Murray 6, Purnell 3, Mayhan 3, Fountain 3, Crawford 2, Massenburg 1 

Spring-Ford: Kressley 14, Turner 8, Schauder 7, Nguyen 7, Campbell 2